Philip Schulz

Philip Schulz

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 5' 10", Weight 170 lb.

• Born March 26, 1994

Biographical Information

Philip Schulz has played in the Bundesliga and for the German national team.

He debuted in the Bundesliga-1 at age 16, playing one game at second base and not batting for the Heidenheim Heideköpfe; Sam Whitehead was the starter. In 2011, he was 2 for 4 with a walk, two runs and a RBI and fielded .889, backing up Hagen Rätz at 2B. He split 2B with Johannes Krumm in 2012 and fielded .947 but hit only .093/.264/.093 in 58 plate appearances. In 2013, he began to blossom; he fielded .976 as their starter and batted .338/.451/.456 with 18 runs in 23 games. He was 8th in the southern Bundesliga-1 in OBP, between former US pros Josh Petersen and Elliot Glynn.

Schulz bounced around a bit in 2014, catching and pitching (1 R in 4 IP) in addition to starting at second. He hit .295/.414/.330 and went 8-for-9 in steal attempts. He played a nice role in Heidenheim's title run in 2015 - he hit .344/.500/.375 with 25 walks in 28 games, scoring 41 runs and stealing 15 bases without being nabbed once. He moved to short and still caught a little, fielding .930. He led the league in runs (4 more than Ludwig Glaser and Matt Vance), walks (one ahead of Mike Larson) and steal percentage and was 3rd in steals (2 behind Kevin Kotowski and Ian Vazquez) and 4th in OBP (between Kai Gronauer and Vance). He hit only .175/.298/.175 in the postseason but played error-free defense.

He was only 2 for 15 with a double in the 2016 European Champions Cup, fielding .962. He slumped on offense in '16 (.185/.392/.185) but fielded .991, stole 7 bases in 7 tries and scored 18 times in 20 games. His .986 fielding at short led the league by 31 points. Despite his off-year at the plate, he was Germany's starting shortstop for the 2016 European Championship and did better there - .333/.478/.333 - while handling 31 chances error-free. Only Eric Brenk had a better average for Germany. He came up big in a 3-2 win over Great Britain; with the game 2-2 in the 7th, he bunted his way on against Conrad Cornell, was bunted over by Marcel Jiménez and scored on a Max Boldt single.

Philip hit .335/.431/.439 for Heidenheim in 2017, stealing 12 bases (not being caught for a third straight season) and scoring 31 runs in 28 games. He was 8th in the league in hits (38), tied for 3rd in triples (3), tied Maik Ehmcke and Kotowski for 4th in runs, 3rd in steals (behind Nateshon Thomas and Sascha Lutz) and 3rd in fielding at SS (.934). In the 2017 European U-23 Championship, he batted .143/.333/.143 for Germany but scored 7 runs in 6 games and handled 18 chances error-free.

In the 2018 European Champions Cup, he batted .385/.429/.462 with 5 RBI in 4 games but was only 2-for-4 in steals. He tied for 4th in the event in RBI, tied Gilmer Lampe and Gary Owens for 4th in steals but led in caught stealing. He broke up Alessandro Maestri's no-hitter in the 7th to start a comeback win over T&A San Marino, scoring Simon Gühring. He was 3 for 15 for Germany in the 2018 Haarlem Baseball Week but scored the winning run in an upset win over Cuba. His fielding was surprisingly poor at .840 with four errors, second to Cuba's Jorge Alomá. He hit .296/.416/.494 with 22 runs and 21 RBI in 24 games for Heidenheim in the 2018 regular season; he tied for 5th in the league in steals (8 in 11 tries) and led shortstops in fielding (.977, .006 ahead of Alex Schmidt). He also had 69 error-free chances at catcher.

Schulz was nearly unstoppable in the 2019 CEB Cup. He reached four times without an at-bat and scored three in the opening win over Vindija Varadzin, scored three against Minsk and had 3 hits, 3 runs and 3 RBI against the Zurich Challengers then three hits against the Montigny Cougars. That put him on the leaderboards (entering the final day, which did not count for leaderboard purposes) in average (.583, 3rd behind Yauheni Karalevich and Aaron Dunsmore), slugging (.667, tied for 7th with Edison Valerio and Petr Čech), OBP (.684, 3rd, behind Karalevich and Dunsmore), runs (10, 1st, one ahead of Owens), hits (7, tied for 3rd), RBI (7, 2nd to Owens) and walks (4, tied for 3rd, one off the lead). In the finale, he was 1 for 3 against former major leaguer Peter Moylan of host Draci Brno through a 7-inning scoreless battle. In the 8th, he was hit by a Radim Chroust pitch and scored on a hit by Dunsmore with an insurance run as Heidenheim won the tournament. While he had a superb performance, he was not named Cup MVP, which went to Heidenheim hurler Enorbel Márquez, who outdueled Moylan.